特装版 ちぐはぐなキス

by Machi Suehiro, 末広 マチ

末広マチが描くみずみずしい青春BL『ちぐはぐなキス』の特製ホログラムカバー&描き下ろし漫画入り28ページ小冊子がついた特装版の発売が決定!

Genres: Manga, Romance, Yaoi, Boys Love, Queer, LGBT, Sequential Art

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2024

Reviews

[Noah]

"Excuse me, um… I love you,” I know that's not the way to start a conversation, trouble / I watch 'em other girls when they come and bug you, but I felt like I knew you so I just wanted to hug you (R.E.M. – Ariana Grande).

Ha! And you thought I was out of manga to gush about, didn’t you? Well here I am, gushing! Sorry, I don’t know why I felt the need to start this out super aggressive style like I'm some kind of anime villain with a “Team Rocket’s blasting off again” inflection, it’s just that I fall back into old habits whenever I’m falling back into old habits. The old habits being acting evil and reading manga. Besides, I’m totally kidding here, you know I’m always making it abundantly clear that whenever I’m bored out of my mind with a particular book, I straight up just binge read manga. I eat it up! Gobble gobble. Well, perhaps I’m not putting this quite the as eloquently as I could be, because I’m making it sound like I think reading manga is somehow lesser than full length novels, and that’s just not true! I grew up on this stuff, and however many books I seem to be reading nowadays actually pales in comparison to sheer volume of manga I’d consume back in the day. Gobble gobble gobble! I can close my eyes and still perfectly recall the mountains of Dragon Ball Z, Hunter X Hunter, and Fullmetal Alchemist volumes I used to devour back when I was a kid. Okay, enough eating metaphors, maybe I’m just hungry. Really though, I think one of the reasons why I’ve started taking up a slightly defensive tone whenever I’m talking about this specific medium (and I’m the same way with comic books) over others is because one of the few times I’ve told someone how many books I’ve read for the “Goodreads Reading Challenge” I was met with a dismissive, “and how many of those were comics and manga.” And not to turn this into a vague post like I usually do, but even if I removed all the manga and single issue comics I’ve read over my lifetime... I still would have read more books in the last year alone than this person had in the last decade. I know damn well they haven’t read that poetry book we picked up at the book store! I know I’m ego tripping here, but the truth is that I don’t look at reading as a competition, but I'll turn it into one if we want to go there. Anyway, this is why I proudly talk about whatever manga or superhero comic book I just finished. It’s all reading, and that’s cool. And to prove that I’m totally not ashamed of whatever it is that I happen to be reading at the time, let me refer you back to the time I was writing long ass essays on shit like My Best Friend's Body Heat or Dick Fight Island. Shame has left the building, I’m afraid.

But yeah, all I’m trying to say is what I’m literally always saying whenever I’m talking about manga; a picture is worth a thousand words, and in that regard, nothing packs more of an emotional punch than a manga about two boys in love. That's it, that's my segue into talking about today's topic. I know the medium gets a bad rep from a lot of folks because the most popular stories are so damn oversaturated with the excessively horny or the weirdly shallow, but if you’re patient enough to sift through all the garbage, you can find gem after gem! That’s how I can hop from Let's Eat Together, Aki and Haru to Blue Summer Haze to Clumsy Kiss and find banger after banger! All these highly rated reads aren't just me being an easy grader, I've worked hard at being able to find the diamonds in the rough! Because all the things I've been reading lately? It’s like Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, hits stacked on hits. I suppose I should actually start talking about what I’m here to talk about today, huh? Alright then, Clumsy Kiss by Machi Suehiro is a lovely little one-off manga that I loved so much I'm barely able to talk about it. Want to see me try anyway? Okay then! After being peer pressured by his buddies to ask out a girl he’s friendly with, high school senior Haruto, decides to ask her out on a lark, which is cool and all… but the problem is this girl shares the same last name as resident hottie and heartbreaker, Aoi. Woah, what’s going to happen!? Well, even though the love-interest in question had decided to write off dating for the duration of school due to past boyfriend troubles, a surprised yet delighted Aoi figures he might as well give dating Haruto a shot. Oh, and it helps that Aoi had already been secretly Benson Goonin’ it for our protagonist for years at this point anyway. See how things just work themselves out? How nice. So yeah, on the flip side of things, as someone who’s always ready to go with the flow (and because he’s awkward af), Haruto decides to just go along with the little white lie and start gay dating the hottest dude in his grade. Deemed queer by happenstance? Hell yeah! Now, I’m realizing as I just wrote that synopsis that I clearly want every manga I read to just be Sasaki and Miyano and you know what? I'm cool with that. You know the deal; cute protagonist who’s unsure about his sexuality falls gay in love with a perceived bad boy who obviously has a hidden heart of gold. Look, it’s a winning formula, and if I have to trap myself in a Groundhog Day situation just to keep experiencing this specific story archetype, then I will!

Wait, I got defensive again. Oops! What I’m getting at is that I’d read a million volumes of Clumsy Kiss over and over just to get my fix of lovely romance. And that's really the center of all of this, isn't it? Because while I know constant conflict and strife is what apparently keeps a story entertaining, a narrative that's a little lighter with its touch is the kind that makes me reread and reread and reread. Oh, I guess I'm stuck in that time loop again! Really though, when I’m always talking about how I love a romance where the two characters like each other, I really mean it. I know that seems like an obvious prerequisite for love stories in general, but you know as well as anybody that the rise of “enemies-to-lovers” books created solely for some kind of TikTok algorithm has put a real stopper in the production line of romances between pleasant lovers. When it comes to manga, I'm here for a pleasant time! And even though I liked how Haruto and Aoi actually liked each other, one of the main things I enjoyed about Clumsy Kiss was the fact that didn’t go with the “pure lovers means chaste lovers” angle that it easily could have, and in fact even featured a couple sex scenes between the two after they graduate. Didn't see that coming, and neither did Aoi. Ayo! Seriously though, Haruto was doing tricks, Benson Boone backflipping on the D. Well, maybe it wasn’t that graphic… or acrobatic, but usually these kind of romances always try to equate true love to cleanliness and purity, so it’s nice that this manga didn’t follow the John Green, Looking for Alaska, “I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane” kind of thing. Man, that book gets worse every time I read that quote... and yes I have it ready for you at a moment's notice. You never know when you've got to give people an example of bad writing! So yeah, this manga is wonderful because it knew when it was important to just go with the flow. See, Clumsy Kiss isn’t like an overly choreographed dance number where there needs to be a specific movement for each and every beat, but it rather finds a nice flow and lets this groove… get you to move, it’s alright. Alright!

“I’m kinda surprised that you get jealous of people too…”
“Just what kind of person do you think I am?”
“The perfect high school guy.”

[Peppa]

The purity of their love is just unique!! This was such a beautiful story, with barley any drama and the angst that lingered at first wasn’t overloaded and made scene uff I want what they have! They are such a healthy green flag couple 😭🩷

[Daesy]

The story was cute and the couple too, but a bit boring. For this 4.5 stars.

[Carrie]

This was SO cute!

"In the spring of my third year of high school... I set out to make the most of the youth I have left... and somehow ended up with a boyfriend."

[Keiko the manga enthusiast ♒︎]

We consume anything delightfully from Machi sensei.

[Conti]

MUY TIERNOS LOS AME, está autora siempre devorando es imposible que haga un manga malo

[Rachael ༊·˚]

Came for a palate cleanser, and this did not disappoint 🥹 The two of them are truly so sweet together, and I might even dare say their relationship dynamics reminds me a bit of Sasaki and Miyano (besides the obvious that, well, there isn't the incredibly excruciating yet rewarding slow burn to power through). But yes, definitely keeping this in mind if I need to just purge from my mind any recent toxic BLs I, intentionally or otherwise, get myself into reading, or just want something with minimal conflict.

[Leila ✨]

CON RAZÓN ME GUSTÓ TANTO EL ARTE ESTA HISTORIA ES DEL AUTOR DEL MEJOR BL UNITARIO AKA フェイクファクトリップス !!!!

Having said that, la historia fue meh. Cute but nothing out of the ordinary.

3 de 5 estrellas.

[Michelle]

This was really sweet. I love how the conflict in this was barely a conflict, and the way they feel for each other was so gentle and natural. Also we love two consent kings. Really glad I picked this up on a whim lol.

[lyss]

wahhhh the art is so pretty woah

[bow down to our ace king victor vale]

2.65!

[Julie]

I'm punching the air. This was so fucking cute. I always get worried when I reread things I felt strongly about because I find that my feelings tend to lessen a lot of the time, but that didn't happen with this one. I was reading this while it was updating and now that the full volume came out I started it back over from the beginning and I basically felt the same exact way. It's so stinking cute!! I cannot properly explain my love for this.

This is about a shy boy, Kumai. His first relationship didn't work out so well since he was too shy and pure to make any moves. Now he's a third year and everyone around him is getting into relationships, he decides to give it another shot. So he takes the jump and messages a girl he's been friendly with recently. The conversation goes well and they set up a lunch date for the following day. But the girl doesn't show up, instead Sasahara, the most popular guy in school does. Kumai had gotten the names mixed up and had accidentally asked Sasahara out. Kumai is at a loss for words and doesn't get a chance to explain the misunderstanding so the two end up spending time together. The closer they get the more worried Kumai is about hurting Sasahara's feelings, but Kumai is developing a crush on Sasahara so now he's worried about ruining their relationship.

This was so cute and wholesome I could die. I'm really happy that the misunderstanding didn't turn into a huge blow up and I think the way that it worked out was the best way they could've done it. I absolutely adore Machi Suehiro's style. The cute blushy faces, the clothes, the hair. It's so appealing to look at. I loved that the relationship focuses so much on the two getting to know each other. I loved that although both of them had bad relationships in the past, the exes never come into the story and those bad relationships aren't too focused on. I mean they are in the way that it shows how they've grown and how the two of them are basically the opposite of each other's ex, but that the exes don't come in to stir shit up or like apologize or whatever. This story was just so refreshing. It was all about building their relationship. They both are very considerate of each other and their feelings and idk!! It's just so sweet. I love fluff so much. My heart was getting that twinge and I was starting to tear up over how happy I was for them. I really loved this.

[Keiko the manga enthusiast ♒︎]

Forgot to add it this instant!! Machi Suehiro kills with this moe bl!! She just never disappoints!

[Zita]

โค่ดดดดดดดดดดน่ารัก ไม่ได้อ่านการ์ตูนวายแล้วเขินจมูกบานขนาดนี้มานานแล้ว เป็นการ์ตูนวายวัยมัธยมปลาย ตัวเอกชื่อฮารุโตะ เป็นเด็กม.ปลายปี 3 ที่อยากมีความรักส่งท้ายวัยมัธยม ฮีเลยทักแชทไปหาสาวชื่อมิโดริ (碧) ที่รู้จักกันที่โรงเรียน คุยแป๊บเดียวก็ขอสาวเป็นแฟน สาวก็ยอมตกลงอย่างง่ายดาย แต่ปรากฏว่าพอนัดกินข้าวด้วยกันวันรุ่งขึ้น คนที่โผล่มาดันเป็นหนุ่มหล่อเพื่อนร่วมชั้นชื่ออาโออิ (碧) สรุปคือน้องทักแชทผิดคนเพราะชื่อสองคนนี้ใช้คันจิตัวเดียวกัน แถมยังไม่กล้าบอกความจริงว่าขอเป็นแฟนผิดคน น้องเลยปล่อยเลยตามเลย ยอมเป็นแฟนกับผู้ชายไปพลางๆ ก็ได้ พล็อตอะไรเนี่ย 555555 แต่น่ารักมากกกก ยิ้มแก้มแตก ลายเส้นก็สุดคิวท์ อ่านแล้วนั่งฮ้อบทั้งเล่ม

[⭐️]

SOOO DAMN CUTEEEEEE!! What a cute case of mixed up contact names and just being too nice haha. I’m very happy at their HEA and i was shocked when Aoi kinda knew this whole time lol. The sweet tender spice was a treat at the end but it was sadly censored

[-moonprismpower-]

Oh this was so cute! I just love Machi Suehiro’s work and I will read everything she comes up with!

[Michael McPherson III]

This Book is the cutest and definitely made My heart skip a beat. A relationship starting from a simple miscommunication actually blossoming was beautiful. It was nice to read a BL again after so long having not. The characters develop nicely over the length of the book. I wish I would have seen a bit more of kumai's friends but it wasn't really necessary either.

[Fallon]

love it super cuuuuuuuuuuute (┬┬﹏┬┬)☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

[romi]

MACHI EN VOS PUEDO CONFIAR TE AMO

[nicole]

3.75

such a cute read!

[K]

Loved the first half; after that, the story kind of fizzled out into average, but it was still cute.

Kumai is a good-looking, good-natured guy with a lot of friends, including female ones. (We hear that from his friends, anyway; we only actually see him talking to one.) A lot of people at school are forming last minute relationships to try to enjoy their youth before college exams take up all their energy, and Kumai's no exception to romantic yearnings.

Except he has had a girlfriend before - their first year of school, someone he'd liked a lot and had thought was also enjoying their relationship, until she criticized his shyness and lack of physicality and broke up with him. Since then, he's been too nervous about "being man enough" in a relationship to start up another one. Being a really nice guy, he also blames himself for the whole thing and won't let his loyal friends talk badly about his ex.

There's another guy at school, Sasahara, whom they've known since first year but haven't talked to much. He's constantly surrounded by girls confessing to him, and there are plenty of rumors that he's a playboy, since no one's ever heard of him having a girlfriend, but since he's that popular and attractive, he must be seeing girls, right?

Wrong, since he's gay. But no one knows that, until Kumai texts the wrong person and accidentally starts dating Sasahara instead of the female friend he'd meant to ask out.

Some of this didn't quite make sense - I mean, I get the whole kanji deal, although wouldn't Kumai's phone contacts have their full names instead of just their first names? Why would he have been looking his friend up by her first name anyway, when he exclusively refers to her by her family name? And why would he have Sasahara's contact info in his phone if they'd never spoken? Maybe it's a school LINE deal, but it didn't feel properly explained.

Anyway, Kumai goes to the school roof for their first date and discovers to his immense distress that Sasahara thinks he'd asked him out, and is being really cute and happy about it. So he just...kind of goes along with it for a while, trying to figure out how to tell Sasahara the truth without hurting his feelings, and in the process they get to know each other a lot better and start to actually fall in love.

All of this was very sweet and cute. Sasahara was gentle and patient with Kumai in a way his ex-girlfriend wasn't, and it turned out he wasn't anything like people's assumptions. He's shy and quiet and interested in cooking because of his cool uncle's cafe, and he's had one really bad relationship where he thought he had a boyfriend, and his cram school tutor just thought they were messing around (while cheating on his actual boyfriend).

So this is a fresh start for both of them, and exactly the kind of sweet, school romance they'd wanted - just in a surprising context.

Except then we get the twist, which I honestly didn't like at all. I do think it makes a lot of sense for Sasahara to have known for a while that Kumai had been messaging the wrong person - he hints at it when they're in the library and waits for Kumai to take the bait and tell him the truth. But it throws off the story if he truly knew from the moment Kumai started texting him. For one thing, it doesn't work with any of their conversation! There's no way Sasahara would've outed himself like that, or spoken the way he did, if he knew all along that Kumai had been trying to text a girl with a similar name.

It felt like a decision that came later in the writing process, and it kind of messed with all the lovely bits of the story that had come before. The characters got backed into a corner, I guess; the only way to keep ultra-good protagonist Kumai from looking like a jerk was to twist it so Sasahara knew the entire time and had been kind of playing him instead. Which honestly felt out of character by that point and made him seem manipulative. More like the person everyone had wrongly thought he was, instead of the sweet, shy, romance-hungry guy Kumai had gotten to know and fallen for.

They still have a cute resolution, but the rest of the story just felt like the same tropes on repeat, instead of the fresh, interesting take on romance from the first half. I ended up kind of disappointed.

[The_BookAce]

Wait this was adorable! It made me think of My Live Mixup in how everything started, and I love that series so I knew I would enjoy this. But it had the slight difference where Aoi knew Haruto meant to ask someone else out, but he still played along. It was refreshing reading an accidental romance where both parties knew about the blunder.

While the misunderstanding was known by both parties, I’m glad it didn’t last until the last chapter. We had the chapter where they weren’t together, and then we had more of the story where they weren’t actually dating so that’s a win. This was just really cute and I loved that Aoi was patient with Haruto. They both had bad past relationships, and they were able to fully embrace each other and themselves in this new one.

[Ash K]

—• 5.0 •—

WAAAH THIS WAS SO CUTE I ALREADY WANT TO REREAD IT 😭

i am absolutely enamoured with the art style! its the perfect mix of cute and beautiful! the story itself was so fun too i enjoyed every single second of it. blushy kumai is so adorable and desperate yearner sasahara had me giggling and kicking my feet <3

[Andrew Hurd]

A super super easy and fun read. I see my boyfriend through both of the characters. It’s super sweet and wholesome (except for the end) which left me all lovey dovey. The best things about this manga is that they actually COMMUNICATE!! Though yes they don’t completely through the whole story they eventually do and it makes me feel like it’s a realistic situation. Cliche? Yes. Still amazing? Yes. It’s not very unique or different from anything I’ve read before but it does its job exceptionally good. If you want a wholesome (mostly) bl, then this is one of the best!

[Ashley]

I was really enjoying this up until the "twist." At which point, I couldn't root for them any more. I think Sasahara is a shitty guy who used a nice guy to make himself feel better just because he was in a bad mood. Even their reconciliation was all on Haruto. 2.5 stars and I rounded it up because I know other people won't be as annoyed by it and it's not terrible enough to rate as a 2 star. But I didn't enjoy it at all after that.

[Zian B.]

This was a pretty cute story to read. I really liked Kumai and Sasahara, along with Kumai’s dynamic with his 2 friends and Sasakara’s dynamic with his uncle and brother. My favorite aspect of this story is how it valued consent and how Kumai’s lack of experience wasn’t seen as an issue for Sasahara.

[thebloggerandthegeek]

AH THIS WAS SO GOOD, SO FUCKING ADORABLE!
No drama, super low angst, amazing communication, and even the misunderstanding ended up with both of them being in the 'wrong' (tho it was lowkey funny how they were both putting effort into this chicken game).
Both families and friends were great. Loved the doggies.
The ROMANCE AHHH SO SWEET.
I think this is gonna be my new comfort read.

[Cass]

Just so cute! Like what else can I say? This was absolutely adorable! And couldn’t put it down either. A perfect fluffy romance between an unlikely pair. This does the popular guy with the non-popular guy trope well without bashing it over your head too much. Just sweet! If you want a light read that just feels good, then this is definitely it!

[Jam]

This was such a cute read! The pacing was great, good amount of fluff and angst, and overall just a feel good young love story. I really enjoyed this one, which wasn't really shocking cause I've loved all of this author's works I've read but still. 10/10

[Melissa Velasco]

Okay now THIS misunderstanding trope I can get behind. And it’s only because they were both misunderstanding and both felt the same way. It was also confronted early on and patched up pretty quickly. And we actually got to enjoy them being cuties together. Very sweet coming of age